In many areas of industry it is required that materials are heated and cooled rapidly. Example industries include plastic reforming, motor body repairs, clothing repairs and manufacturer, plastic leisure goods, marine industries and the hairdressing industry. The general practice is to heat a range of materials reform or shape the material or article and then rapid cool to maintain the shape.
For hairdressing, the state of the art goes back 50 and more years it has been known that applying gentle heat to the hair follicles produces a change in the chemical makeup of the hair follicle.
In the case of hair tongs and straightening tongs, advances have been made in the mariner by which the heat is transmitted to the hair by the heating element with the express purpose of heating the full cross section in the shortest time to avoid damage. It is a fact that applying high heat to the hair can destroy it or damage it. In recent times manufacturers have steadily increased the temperature of their irons up to 230 degrees centigrade. This particular high heat iron became popular until women complained about damage to their hair. The inventors of the following devices and technology set about refining and developing the method by which heat is introduced to the hair. It is a known fact that heating the hair changes the hydrogen bonds within the follicle. A challenge was to define the correct or most suitable temperature to which hair may be heated.
It is also known in the art that cooling hair after it has been heated and formed into a desired style helps set the style, so that the hair maintains the style for a longer period of time.
In the case conventional of hair dryers, arrangements provide for rapid heating of hair by a heated air stream, whilst cooling is provided by switching off the heating elements placed in a driven air steam.
However, at best the “cool” air provided by these dryers is the same temperature as the ambient air. More commonly, the cool air is actually warmer than the ambient air, because it has been contaminated by residual heated air produced whilst the heating element cools down.
As such, the rate at which hair can be cooled (which is determined by the temperature difference between the hair and the cooling medium) is limited when using conventional apparatuses. In the case of hair tongs, it is known to use the casing of the hair tongs to cool hair after it has been in contact with the heated element of the tongs. However, once again, the casing is certainly no cooler than the ambient conditions and is likely to be much hotter due to heat leakage from the heated plates (although the casing may still be cooler than the plates themselves).
Therefore, it is desirable to incorporate a method of active cooling into hair styling devices, so that hair can be both quickly heated and quickly cooled. The active cooling would not only allow for lower cooling temperatures to be achieved, but would also allow for the cooling effect to be more rapidly available. That is, there would be no need to wait for a heating element to cool down before a cool stream of air could be achieved. At present, it is common for hairdressers to forgo the cooling function of conventional hair dryers in favour of manually blowing on hair which has been heated and put into a shape, in order to cool the hair down. This is because the cooling function of the conventional hair dryers does not provide suitably cool air fast enough after the hair dryer has produced heated air.
One way of cooling is to use the thermoelectric effect to create a temperature difference across a device constructed from suitable materials by applying an electric voltage across the device. This is also known as the Peltier effect, and devices making use of the Peltier device are commonly referred to as Peltier modules. Because these devices are most often used to produce a source of cooling (as opposed to a source of heating) these devices are also known as thermoelectric coolers (TECs).
Previous patents teach the use of Peltier modules mounted in hair irons to provide heat and or hot and cold. In WO 2007/00700 A2 there is described a device whereby quote:
“A preferred kind of coolers based on the Peltier effect, so-called thermoelectric coolers (TEC). TEC's usually having a cold and hot side. Particularly compact hair styling appliances can be achieved, if the cooling member is the cold side of a TEC and the heating member is the hot side of a TEC.”
U.S. Pat. No. 5,507,103 discloses a hair dryer which utilises the thermoelectric effect. A Peltier device is positioned in a conduit, such that air flowing over one side of the Peltier device is cooled, whilst air flowing over the other side is heated. Therefore, existing hair styling devices do not heat and cool a lock of hair efficiently, resulting in costly delays for professional hairdressers in time wasted between heating and cooling operations.